On Scale Interactions in the Tropics During Northern Summer
- 1 May 1972
- journal article
- Published by American Meteorological Society in Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences
- Vol. 29 (4) , 698-706
- https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(1972)029<0698:osiitt>2.0.co;2
Abstract
Results of computations of energy exchanges between waves and waves and between waves and zonal flows (for a tropical belt 15S to 15N at 200 mb for northern summer) are presented in this paper. These exchanges are 92-day averages. The procedure for calculations is essentially that proposed by Saltzman. The main results of this study are: Zonal wavenumber 1 appears to be a major energy source for the tropics. In general, one of two other waves interacting with wavenumber 1 gains energy. Wavenumber 1 also supplies energy to the zonal flows in the mean. Thus, it has a stabilizing influence on the zonal flows. On the other hand, zonal flows are unstable and lose energy to shorter waves, especially around wavenumber 8. In this paper we also discuss some details of the nonlinear wave-wave energy exchanges.Keywords
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